Lender · Austin, TX · Member since 2022 · 5k+ posts · 4k+ votes
Sharing with this forum - today's featured article I wrote for BiggerPockets all about DSCR Loans:
In recent years, a fairly new loan product: Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) loans, has become enormously popular with real estate investors. DSCR loans have become a critical tool for investors on track to achieve their dreams of financial freedom.
These loans, meant specifically for investment properties only, are so effective and popular because they require no income verification (or Debt-To-Income Ratio) and no tax returns or endless paperwork. Further — while the qualification and documentation are much less than conventional mortgages — the interest rates are just barely higher (typically less than 1% more). These loans offer fixed rates for 30 years, including options where it’s interest-only for the first 10 years, so you avoid the payoff and refinance pressure that often comes with hard money alternatives.
Put together, it’s no wonder why investors have flocked to these loans to scale their portfolios and achieve their dreams of financial freedom.
Why hasn't hard money seen the same spike DSCR has in interest rates?
Hard money is already priced conservatively and in a lot of cases its just investors earning 8-10% on their money for a year. Not quite the same economics for those longer term products. As long as a note buyer can still make a spread there shouldn't be a huge rate hike. The market demand seems to influence hard money rates while the wall street buyers for long term notes drove the rates.
Why hasn't hard money seen the same spike DSCR has in interest rates?
It's seen an increase but its a different market. Gets a little complicated but the DSCR rates are primarily driven by the Non-QM securitization market / secondary markets and are really aligned there. Since they are almost exclusively 30-year terms, the risk is much higher for a buyer getting an under-market yield for a long-term duration, whereas hard money thats a year or less, that "risk" of having a lower yield for longer is much much less.